Written with great imaginings by Jacqueline Rayner
And superbly directed by Barnaby Edwards, Esq.
Sound Design and Post Production by David Darlington
Music by Timothy Sutton (with acknowledgements to Sir Arthur Sullivan)

The management will not admit any latecomers to the performance.

Colin Baker as the irrepressible cavalier hero The Doctor!Maggie Stables as the daring damsel associate Evelyn Smythe!Dan Barratt as lovable cabin boy Jem!Helen Goldwyn as the tragic student, Sally!Bill Oddie as Red Jasper, scourge of the high seas!
Nicholas Pegg as the foppish captain, Emmanuel Swan!Mark Siney as the ruthless Mr. Merryweather!Timothy Sutton as the Mate/Sailor/Pirate!

All aboard, me hearties, for a rip-roaring tale of adventure on the high seas!

There’ll be rum for all and sea shanties galore as we travel back in time to join the valiant crew of the good ship Sea Eagle, braving perils, pirates and a peripatetic old sea-dog known only as the Doctor!

Gasp as our Gallifreyan buccaneer crosses swords with the fearsome Red Jasper, scourge of the seven seas and possessor of at least one wooden leg! Thrill as Evil Evelyn the Pirate Queen sets sail in search of buried treasure, with only a foppish ship’s captain and an innocent young cabin boy by her side! Marvel at the melodious mayhem which ensues as we sail the ocean blue!

And wonder why Evelyn still hasn’t realised that very few stories have happy endings...

A university student named Sally is surprised when she returns to her flat to find that her favourite professor, Evelyn Smythe, has returned from vacation and shown up for an unannounced visit. Now isn’t a good time, but Evelyn seems oblivious to Sally’s attempts to dissuade her from entering. Sally reluctantly puts the kettle on as Evelyn settles down, claiming that she has a marvellous story to tell... a story about pirates.

Part One

(drn: 31'52")

To set the scene, we must imagine that Evelyn has the ability to travel through time and space thanks to her friend, the Doctor. Perhaps he will show up later in person, but for now he’s a character in Evelyn’s story. Sally reluctantly settles down to listen to her friend’s swashbuckling tale...

The Doctor’s time machine materialises in the hold of a ship transporting precious silks, gold and jewellery, but just as the Doctor and Evelyn work out where they are, the ship collides with something and water begins to flood into the hold. Evelyn insists that the Doctor try to rescue the unfortunate sailors, and though reluctant to let others into the TARDIS, the Doctor nevertheless agrees to help. As he and Evelyn emerge from the hold, however, it becomes clear that the collision was no accident; the ship is under attack by pirates. The Doctor and Evelyn take shelter as the pirate captain, Red Jasper, demands that the men of the Sea Eagle lay down their weapons.

Sally is playing along for the sake of the story, but she balks at Evelyn’s characterisation of the Doctor. Surely no one man could have met Winston Churchill, kick-started the Industrial Revolution, and been involved somehow with the Great Fire of London. Evelyn admits that even she doesn’t know how many of the Doctor’s stories about his past are actually true...

Back to the story. The Doctor and Evelyn are hiding behind a pile of barrels while a pirate captain with two wooden legs and hooks for hands threatens to kill them all. The Mate pledges loyalty to the ship, Captain Emmanuel Swan and Queen Anne, and is disgusted when his fellow sailors down weapons after one look at the fierce pirates. The Mate steps forward to protect his captain, but the Doctor intervenes, realising that the Mate is going to get himself killed. Identifying himself as a mysterious stranger, the Doctor challenges Red Jasper to single combat; if bested, Jasper must allow the sailors to leave peacefully on the Sea Eagle. The Doctor and Red Jasper draw swords and have at each other.

Sally points out that the Sea Eagle was supposed to be sinking. Also, where did Evelyn’s friend get his sword from? And how could Red Jasper wield a sword if he had hooks for hands? Evelyn shushes her and carries on with the story.

The Doctor defeats Red Jasper easily, and Jasper, impressed, offers him a place amongst the crew of the Adventurer’s Fancy. The Doctor scornfully rejects the opportunity to become a murderous pirate... and Jasper, offended by his attitude, draws a pistol and shoots the Doctor through the heart, killing him dead.

Actually, that didn’t happen. It was the Mate who challenged Red Jasper and got killed for it; the Doctor and Evelyn were hiding behind the barrels, trying to work out how to get back to the TARDIS. Evelyn admits that she got a bit carried away in telling the story, and brought in the Doctor because he hadn’t done anything heroic yet; unfortunately, she’d forgotten just how the duel had ended. The truly sad thing is that nobody seemed to care that the Mate had just been killed. It seems important to Evelyn that this point be made. Perhaps if only one person had cared for him, he wouldn’t have been quite so quick to throw his life away.

Swan is horrified by the Mate’s death. The Doctor stops Evelyn from interfering as Red Jasper orders his men to fling the Mate’s body overboard, and the pirate captain then turns on the sailors of the Sea Eagle, demanding to know where he can find One-Eye Trent.

But as Jasper strides the deck on two wooden legs, snarling salty piratical curses, Sally gives up on the story completely. Red Jasper’s peg legs and use of language is pure cliché from the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, and who is One-Eye Trent supposed to be, anyway? Evelyn is taken aback to realise that part of the story she’d intended to keep to herself has slipped out, and asks Sally to forget about it and just accept that, however many wooden legs Red Jasper may or may not have had, the point is that he was an evil pirate.

Red Jasper gives the men of the Sea Eagle the opportunity to join him and his crew; they can either plunder other ships and keep the wealth for themselves, or they can refuse his offer and he can kill them. The sailors all decide to join up with Red Jasper. (This part of the story is difficult for Evelyn to tell -- not emotionally, but technically. She finds herself using the same voice for all of the sailors, runs out of names and starts calling them after Dickensian characters, and finally just gives up and skips on to the next bit.)

While the sailors are switching loyalties, the Doctor and Evelyn are having a conversation which they actually had earlier but which Evelyn forgot to mention and is therefore slotting into the story here. They decide to remain hidden and return to the TARDIS once the pirates have gone -- but the pirates loot the hold, and as the Doctor and Evelyn watch in horror, the pirates load the TARDIS aboard the Adventurer’s Fancy. The Doctor rushes forward to stop them...

Actually, no, he doesn’t, because that would be foolhardy and dangerous. Instead, he devises a clever plan; he and Evelyn will hide inside these empty barrels instead of behind them, and the pirates will feel the weight, assume they’re full of rum, and load them aboard the Fancy. Evelyn crams herself into one of the barrels, but the Doctor chooses badly and opens a barrel which is full of pepper. His sneezes give him away, but when Swan accuses the Doctor of stowing away, Jasper tires of listening to the foppish and cowardly captain and orders one of his new crewmen, “John Johnson”, to lash Swan to the mast. The Doctor claims to have an interest in pirate booty and offers to help Jasper carry his takings onto the Adventurer’s Fancy. Jasper accepts him into the crew, but as the Doctor starts to pick up the barrel containing Evelyn, John Johnson reveals that it’s already empty. Jasper thus orders his men to return to their ship, and the Doctor is swept along with them, leaving Swan lashed helplessly to the mast and Evelyn trapped in her barrel...

Sally has had enough of the story. The plot isn’t going anywhere, the dialogue is over the top and anachronistic, the situation is a weak rehash of pirate clichés, and Sally just wants to be left alone. But to her despair, there’s a knocking at the door and the Doctor himself waltzes in, also refusing to take Sally’s increasingly unsubtle hints that she wants to be left alone. The Doctor is surprised to learn that Evelyn hasn’t reached the part about the treasure hunt yet, and when Sally questions why the pirates would want to hunt for treasure after having just raided the Sea Eagle, Evelyn admits that she made up that bit to make the story more exciting; the hold of the Sea Eagle was in fact empty. Sally remains aggressively uninterested even when Evelyn shows her the treasure map, but the Doctor and Evelyn remain just as quietly determined to finish their story. Since Evelyn seems to be having trouble getting started, the Doctor picks up where she left off.

Red Jasper welcomes all of the new additions to his crew -- particularly the Doctor, that fine, distinguished-looking sailor with the noble bearing and stylish outfit -- and informs them that they’re off to find treasure. Without Trent’s map to guide them they’ll tear the islands apart to find it -- and to ensure that there’s no competition, Jasper orders his men to torch the Sea Eagle. The Doctor realises he must give away Evelyn’s presence to save her, but as he tries to speak to Jasper, the pirate captain finally realises that the Doctor isn’t one of the Sea Eagle’s crew after all, and concludes that he must be the man who was asking about a ship heading for these islands. The Doctor tries to assure Jasper that he doesn’t know what the man’s talking about, but Jasper has him knocked out and orders his men to torch the Sea Eagle -- and fetch the instruments of torture, to get information out of the Doctor.

Part Two

(drn: 30'41")

Evelyn recaps the story so far while the Doctor makes tea. They then agree to split the storytelling between them; Evelyn will tell her part of the story while the Doctor tells his. The story resumes with Evelyn trapped in a barrel and Captain Swan lashed to the mast as the ship burns around them -- but when a cabin girl named Sally arrives to let Evelyn out, the real Sally calls a halt to the proceedings, refusing to let Evelyn insert her into this silly story. The Doctor understands why Evelyn did so, but gently suggests that it’s unfair both to Sally and to the memory of Jem; if what they’re doing here is to mean anything, then Evelyn must tell the story as it really happened. Evelyn reluctantly resumes...

Jem the cabin boy hid himself away when the pirates attacked, too young to join the fight and mindful of his father’s advice that no true man would ever surrender to lawless piracy. He frees Evelyn and Swan, but the pirates have taken all of the fresh water and every sack in the hold, leaving them with no way to douse or smother the flames. As Swan whines over the loss of his ship and all of his worldly possessions, Evelyn comes up with another plan; as the pirates destroyed all of the ship-to-shore boats, they will have to make another of their own, using the intact planks from the deck, the empty barrels, and some rope.

The Doctor wakes to find Red Jasper and his first mate, Merryweather, preparing to torture him until he surrenders the treasure map. From Jasper’s questions, the Doctor pieces together that a man named One-Eyed Trent possesses a map indicating the location of buried treasure; when Jasper learned that someone was asking for a ship heading for the Ruby Islands, he assumed that Trent had returned at last and attacked the Sea Eagle in search of him. It appears that he was mistaken, and he now suspects that the Doctor has somehow learned about the map.

The Doctor manages to convince Trent that he knows nothing about the map and might be able to help if he knows the whole story. Jasper thus explains that he and Trent once served under the feared pirate Ezekiel Bones, who plundered a ship full of treasure bound for William and Mary. As the captain died he claimed that the King had an agent aboard Bones’ ship, and Bones thus buried the treasure on the Ruby Islands, killed everyone who had helped him carry the treasure to land, and set sail for Jamaica with the survivors. Jasper hid away when they reached port, knowing that Bones would kill them all to keep his secret. Soon afterwards he heard shots, but soldiers then boarded the ship and arrested Bones -- and when the bodies were removed from the ship, Trent’s was not amongst them. Bones was hanged the next day, and Jasper was unable to find the treasure map. Convinced that Trent had betrayed them all, Jasper went underground to lull him into a false sense of security -- but when he surfaced, he learned that Trent had gone to England. Jasper lost his trail in London, and thus returned to sea and kept an ear out for any mention of the Ruby Islands. It was Bones who’d given them that name; thus, Jasper and Trent are the only two alive who know it, and when Jasper heard that someone was asking after the Ruby Islands, he knew that Trent had returned for the treasure at last.

The Doctor gently points out that Trent wasn’t on the Sea Eagle, but Jasper is obsessed and refuses to accept the possibility that the treasure is long lost. He thus lines up every sailor from the Sea Eagle and inquires whether any of them have ever heard of the Ruby Islands. Despite Jasper’s promise of a reward to the man who reveals the treasure’s resting place, the sailors simply murmur in confusion until Jasper loses his temper, picks one sailor at random and shoots him dead. The rest will go the same way until the man Jasper’s looking for identifies himself.

Evelyn, Jem and Swan have lashed together a makeshift raft and escaped from the burning wreck of the Sea Eagle. However, the foppish Swan feels that as captain he shouldn’t have to row, and doesn’t believe Jem’s claim that there are islands nearby. Jem insists that the Ruby Islands his dad told him about are real, and as Evelyn uses Jem’s compass to guide them, Jem tells her about his family. His father was always away at sea, but after his last journey he returned home for good with enough money for the family to settle down in London. Jem’s father died soon afterwards, but though pining for the life of a sailor he never spoke of returning; however, he did teach Jem all he knew about the sea. He even talked of treasure in the Ruby Islands, on an island in the shape of a donkey, and when he gave Jem his compass he told him it might lead him to the treasure one day. Evelyn finds it odd that an ordinary sailor would know the location of buried treasure, but to the innocent Jem this is all just part of a grand adventure, a story to tell the people at home...

But things didn’t turn out that way. It’s getting difficult for Evelyn to tell the story, as she remembers how happy Jem was and how bright his future seemed at the time. But Jasper was more mad than they knew, and poor Jem didn’t have a future...

On the Adventurer’s Fancy, the Doctor investigates the sound of gunfire and is horrified to find that Red Jasper has just shot and killed a man for no reason. He stops Jasper from continuing, arguing that no treasure is worth a man’s life -- but Jasper disagrees. He returns to his cabin to ponder his next move, leaving Merryweather in charge. The Doctor is angered by what he’s seen, but Merryweather doesn’t accept his right to criticize; he doesn’t understand the life of a pirate.

The sun is beating down on the raft, and Evelyn, Jem and Swan are tired and thirsty. Just as all appears hopeless, Jem spots a distant speck in the distance, and after several moments’ hard rowing they realise that it’s a ship. But even if they’ve caught up the pirates, the ship will have fresh water on board, and Jem and Swan thus continue to row...

Evelyn can’t tell this story any more, not when she knows what will happen next. She wanted to tell a story with a happy ending, but this one came out instead. Sally doesn’t believe in happy endings any more, but when she quotes an ironic line from The Mikado, this gives the Doctor an idea; if virtue only triumphs in the theatre, then they’ll treat this story as a theatrical production. Evelyn intervenes to stop him from breaking into song, and, somewhat smug about having distracted her, the Doctor resumes the story where he left off.

Merryweather claims that the Doctor doesn’t understand the life of a pirate, but the Doctor believes that it’s Merryweather who doesn’t truly appreciate what it means to roam freely out of nothing more than the spirit of adventure. In fact, you could say he is the very model of a Gallifreyan buccaneer.

This time, Evelyn can’t stop him. The Doctor is going to sing after all...

Part Three

(drn: 28'07")

The Doctor said he was going to sing, and he does, a rousing ditty about his past exploits and the joy of freedom. “I am the very model of a Gallifreyan buccaneer...” Whatever his fellow Time Lords may think of him, his wanderlust, love of life, and spirit of adventure make him a true Gallifreyan. However, Merryweather still insists that he’ll never make a pirate. The Doctor tries to convince him that following Red Jasper’s murderous orders isn’t a noble path, and Merryweather admits, in song, that he doesn’t enjoy having to kill -- but he’ll do whatever he’s ordered to, as is his duty. “When homicidal duty’s to be done (to be done), an assassin’s lot is not a happy one...”

The Doctor isn’t impressed with Merryweather’s rationalisation for murder, but Merryweather and his men scoff when the Doctor claims to pity them. The Doctor insists that he isn’t preaching, he’s just trying to understand their mentality. Perhaps they could sing a song to explain it? So Merryweather does: “For Captain Red I’ll strike you dead; you’d have to go, be you friend or foe...” The Doctor scorns him as a simple killer, but that strikes a chord with Sally, who unexpectedly joins in the song. “Not as I planned, blood on my hands; I take the blame, I bear the shame, I bear the shame...” The Doctor joins in as well -- “I heard one day a gentleman say that sorrow is the price we pay... -- and the three melodies blend together and play off each other. Merryweather will kill without mercy if ordered to do so. Sally is suffering terribly for what she’s done and is ready to let go of it all. The Doctor tries to assure her that this isn’t necessary: “Don’t bid adieu, I’ve suffered too...”

In the awkward silence that follows, Evelyn admits that she knows about the accident Sally was involved in, a terrible tragedy that took the life of Sally’s lover. She blames herself for driving too fast on an icy road, and now no one will look her in the eye -- either because they don’t know what to say or because they blame her too. The Doctor retreats to the kitchen to brew more tea, and Sally, angered by these intrusions into her grief and solitude, tells Evelyn to go help her friend. Evelyn promises to return in a minute to finish the story, but Sally just wants to be left alone... forever. “I mean to leave the earth, I mean to fly; I’ll be no more alone, just me and I... Sally breaks down in tears.

The story resumes. As Evelyn, Swan and Jem approach the ship, they see that it’s flying the Jolly Roger; as they’d feared, it’s the pirate ship. If they can get on board, Evelyn knows they can reach safety in the TARDIS -- but Swan, appalled by the thought of stowing away on a ship, even a pirate ship, refuses to board until his crew have seen the error of their ways and agreed to take him on as captain.

Meanwhile, the debate between the Doctor and Merryweather continues. Merryweather thinks the Doctor a coward because he won’t kill, but the Doctor considers himself brave for refusing to take the easy option of murder. He challenges Merryweather to a contest to prove which of them is the better sailor, and they promptly engage in a battle of nautical skills, as well as a duet -- although Sally notes that the Doctor switches songs partway through. The Doctor proves that he can climb the rigging as well as Merryweather, but Merryweather proves that he can handle a ship’s wheel. The Doctor then challenges him to a drinking contest, and Merryweather downs twice as much rum as the Doctor. The Doctor then challenges him to prove his sea legs by walking a narrow breadth of wood without staggering, and Merryweather, reeling from the effect of the rum, doesn’t realise what he’s doing until it’s too late. “Then give three cheers and one more cheer, as one of you is far the better privateer; then give three cheers, you mountebank, as Merryweather walks the plank!”

Despite herself, Sally is amused by the Doctor’s cleverness. The Doctor notes that Evelyn hasn’t joined in the songs, and she archly tells him that there’s a reason for that.

Evelyn, Swan and Jem hear Merryweather fall overboard; fortunately, he does so on the opposite side of the ship, and Evelyn realises that this gives them an excellent opportunity to slip aboard unnoticed. Swan refuses to do so, and Evelyn and Jem thus clamber aboard by themselves.

The pirates and sailors laugh at Merryweather’s humiliation until Jasper storms out of his cabin in a rage and accuses the Doctor of mutiny. Just as the pirates are about to kill him, Evelyn and Jem arrive, and the Doctor tries to bluff them into surrendering by claiming that he serves the most bloodthirsty pirate of them all -- the fearsome Evil Evelyn, captain of the dread sloop Lecturer’s Revenge! Evelyn rallies and tries to support the Doctor’s bluff, but doesn’t do very well. “I’m doing my best; it’s not my scene; whose mad idea was this Pirate Queen?” The bluff fails, for she doesn’t know what she’s doing and her attempt to fire a warning shot uses up all of the powder in Jem’s pistol.

As Merryweather returns to the deck, dripping and humiliated, Jasper orders him to lock up the Doctor -- while he deals with Evelyn. As the Doctor is dragged off, protesting vainly, Jasper threatens to kill Evelyn and young Jem for their foolishness. One of the sailors from the Sea Eagle, John Johnson, protests this cruelty, but this only fans Jasper’s rage. Evelyn tries to calm everyone down by offering dairy milk chocolate all around... but Jasper waits for Johnson to finish and then cuts out the tongue that dared disagree with him and forces him to eat it as well. The Doctor hears Evelyn sobbing in terror as she and Jem are dragged off to await their fate, and breaks out of the hold to confront Jasper -- but Jasper, having proven who’s in charge here, now punishes the Doctor for humiliating Merryweather by making him walk the plank as well. “Hurrah for the pirate king!”

Part Four

(drn: 35'25")

Once again, Evelyn recaps the story to the point of the Doctor’s falling overboard. Locked up in Jasper’s cabin, she and Jem hear the Doctor plummet and hit the water. Evelyn smashes the sternlight to see what’s happening, and directs the Doctor to swim over to Swan’s raft. Before she or Jem can find any rope to toss to him, the wind picks up and the pirate ship begins to move, leaving the raft behind. Before they’re separated again, Evelyn tosses Jem’s compass to the Doctor and tells him to head south-south-west. As the raft recedes into the distance, Red Jasper enters the cabin and is infuriated to find his carpet covered with shards of glass. Evelyn tries to apologise, assures him that she doesn’t want any trouble... and innocently asks him to drop them off at the Ruby Islands which Jem had mentioned. Jasper demands to know how Jem knows of the Ruby Islands, and Jem nervously admits that his father spoke of them all the time. When he confirms that his father had only one eye, the enraged Jasper demands that Jem surrender the treasure map which his father stole. Jem has no idea what Jasper’s talking about, but Jasper doesn’t believe him, and Evelyn can do nothing as Jasper tries to beat the truth out of the terrified young boy...

Elsewhere, the Doctor and Swan are rowing towards the Ruby Islands. Swan complains of hunger and thirst, and the Doctor, irritated, pulls an apple out of his pocket and tosses it to him. The Doctor himself is more concerned about Evelyn...

That’s Evelyn’s cue to pick up the story again, but she can’t do it. She can’t relive these tragic events, not as a jolly tale with jokes and songs and witty banter, not when she holds herself responsible for what happened next. The Doctor sadly confirms for Sally that Jasper refused to accept that young Jem died knew nothing about the treasure map, and killed him for it. Evelyn has learned the hard way that there are no happy endings in real life. Sally knows true stories can only end one way -- but the Doctor insists that life is made up of a series of stories, and that when one ends, another begins. He resumes the story, assuring Evelyn that they needn’t go into details, and that he’ll continue to the end himself. But no singing.

The Doctor and Swan reach the Ruby Islands, but as the name suggests, there’s more than one in the chain. At this point Swan reveals that, as Jem mentioned earlier, the treasure is located on an island shaped like a donkey. Furious, the Doctor aims for the nearest island, planning to climb to a vantage point and get a good look at the entire chain. The Doctor and Swan climb as high as they can, and as Swan staggers off in search of fresh water, the Doctor climbs a tree for a better look. Fortunately, he was taught to climb trees by Tarzan himself... well, no, he wasn’t, but he gets to the top of the tree and spots two likely candidates, one island that looks like a camel and another like a penguin. Swan rushes up in a panic, claiming that he’s being pursued by a dragon, and as he climbs the tree, he causes the Doctor to drop the compass. The Doctor somehow manages to remain calm, even when Swan reveals that he’s had a spyglass all this time. Assuring the panic-stricken Swan that the devilish monster he saw was a harmless iguana, the Doctor takes a good look at the “camel” island and decides that it’s likely a donkey. With a hump. He and Swan then descend the tree, and the Doctor collects the shattered remains of Jem’s compass... and finds a treasure map inside.

Sally regards the map with more respect now, as the Doctor skips ahead to the hunt for the treasure. He and Swan were able to reach the island before the pirates arrived, and used the map to locate the treasure -- which, as the islands’ name suggested, consisted of thousands of rubies. Now all they had to do was get back to the pirate ship, convince Swan’s former crew to change sides again, and recover Evelyn and the TARDIS...

The Doctor and Swan hide near the beach and watch as the pirates drop anchor, lower a boat and head for shore, led by Jasper himself. Unfortunately, at this point the Doctor learns that Swan didn’t bother to tie up the raft when they landed. Furious, he waits for the pirates to land, and uses some rubies from the hoard to bribe the guard into letting him and Swan take the boat back to the pirate ship. As soon as they’re close enough, the Doctor slips out of the boat and swims up to the side of the Fancy, and Swan calls out to the sailors, claiming to have a treasure map. The sailors take him on board, and Swan presents the map to Jasper, pointing out that the man who gives it to Jasper will be in for a rich reward. Merryweather considers this for a moment, and then has Swan locked up and sets off for the island.

The Doctor ducks underwater to avoid being spotted, waits for Merryweather to get clear, and then slips on board the Fancy and frees Swan. He then searches for Evelyn, and, much to his sorrow, finds her sobbing over the dead body of young Jem London. On deck, Swan is having trouble convincing the greedy sailors to rethink their allegiances again until the Doctor and Evelyn arrive, bearing the body of a child who wanted to come to sea all his life, only to end up being brutally murdered by a sadistic killer. Shamed into silence by what they see, the sailors agree to abandon Jasper on the island, take the ship and sail for home. Swan is a captain again.

That was the last the Doctor and Evelyn saw of Jasper, and the Doctor still has to explain how he still has the map if Swan handed it over to Merryweather. The Doctor admits that he can only imagine what happened when Merryweather gave the alleged map to Jasper...

Jasper and his pirates follow the instructions on the treasure map, but find only another piece of paper with a brightly coloured picture of the donkey-shaped island. Nearby is a picture of a tail with a pin in it. Perhaps it’s a clue?

All right, it’s implausible that Jasper and his men ended up playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey... but at least the Doctor left them something to do while they were marooned.

It’s time for the Doctor and Evelyn to go, but Evelyn doesn’t want to take any of the rubies as a souvenir, considering what they’ve cost already. The Doctor thus hands them over to Swan and leaves him practicing the speech he’ll make when he presents them to the Queen. Evelyn has been badly shaken by her experiences, but the Doctor advises her to take comfort in the fact that she can still be shocked by evil. Acknowledging that she needs some time to rest and to grieve, he agrees to take her home.

Sally is surprised to realise that they’ve been up all night, and is even more surprised that the normally irrepressible Evelyn is tired. But Evelyn’s older now, and wearier. The Doctor gently sends Evelyn home to rest, assuring her that he won’t leave without her. Sally still doesn’t understand why Evelyn is so despondent -- until the Doctor shows her the letter that was waiting for Evelyn when she returned home, a letter informing her of the pointless waste of yet another young life... the letter that Sally had only just returned from mailing when she found Evelyn waiting at her door last night. The Doctor explains to the stunned Sally that he took Evelyn back in time to give her a chance to prevent this, one extra night to talk, to tell a story, and to try to remind Sally that if you make it through the night, it can seem better in the morning. Sally now knows just how much Evelyn cares, and the Doctor departs, telling Sally that he hopes they’ll meet again in the future. Sally sits alone for a moment, and then opens the window on a fresh new morning, full of promise. “And brightly shines the dawning day...”

Source: Cameron Dixon

Continuity Notes:

The songs in Episode Three are parodies and homages of songs from the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas:

Track 2: I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General from The Pirates of Penzance.

Track 4: When A Felon's Not Engaged In His Employment from The Pirates of Penzance.

Track 6: I Am So Proud from The Mikado.

Track 8: The Sun, Whose Rays from The Mikado.

Track 10: We Sail The Ocean Blue and I Am the Captain of the Pinafore from HMS Pinafore.

Track 11: I Claim My Perjured Lover, Nanki-Poo from The Mikado.

Tracks 12/14: Oh, Better Far to Live and Die from The Pirates of Penzance.

Episode 4, Track 7: The Threatened Cloud Has Passed Away from The Mikado.